The present invention is directed to a dental handpiece, which is provided with a gripping sleeve and has an interior portion of a handpiece which has bearing means for supporting at least one drive shaft received in the gripping sleeve and has various lines for conducting various agents, such as air, water, electrical power or light, disposed within the gripping sleeve and extending therealong.
A dental handpiece, which has a gripping sleeve which receives a body member that has at least one drive shaft and bearing means for supporting the drive shaft, as well as various supply lines for fluids, such as air, water and power or light is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 4,354,839, which corresponds to European Printed Application No. 00 29 863. In this arrangement, the gripping sleeve assumes the first job of determining the outside contour with respect to the optical appearance and also the gripping properties. A second job is to receive an acceptance member or base member for the drive shaft bearings and the various agent lines.
Such an arrangement causes a comparatively complicated structure for a handpiece having a relatively high manufacturing cost, particularly for high cost of materials and also cost of machines for producing the handpiece. This outlay is especially high because a comparatively large number of parts having a high precision fit are necessary, particularly in order to provide the inwardly disposed guide channels and in order to exactly fit the inside parts of the gripping sleeve in a precise relationship to one another. In addition, the outside contour is also relatively complicated, particularly when one would like to provide handpieces with different contours.